SAGINAW TOWNSHIP, MI — A lot has changed since Saginaw Township-based Morley Companies Inc. was founded in 1863. The Saginaw Valley was home to a thriving lumber industry back then and Morley was a hardware distributor serving those companies.

Today, Morley is still in the service industry, but on a whole different level. The company employs 1,700 to provide a wide range of business services.

Morley helps clients, including some Fortune 500 companies, plan and operate meetings and events; it manages contact
centers to handle such services as technical help desk
and sales and marketing support, and it offers data collection and
reporting and analysis services.

Morley also offers theater
services such as program design, staging, lighting and sound,
photography and videography, and executive speech-writing.

Morley also
designs, engineers, fabricates and installs exhibits and displays for trade shows, museums and other places.

“If
you were to ask how our company has been able to not only survive but
thrive for 150 years, it’s been through a passionate commitment to
customer service,” said President and CEO Paul Furlo. “We have embraced change and have been
successful at reinventing ourselves and our product lines to meet our
clients’ changing needs.”

Morley isn't just adapting, it's growing.

When
Furlo joined the firm full time in 1991, the company had 26
associates, he said. Today, Morley is the
largest employer in Saginaw Township.

“From 2008 to 2011, we more
than doubled in size,” Furlo said. “And from 2011 … through 2014 we
will again more than double in size.”

Furlo said they plan to continue growing at the same pace for the next five years.

Its Saginaw Township campuses occupy more than 400,000 square feet on
25 acres. The company also has regional offices in Detroit, Connecticut
and Southern California, and affiliates in Asia, Europe, Latin America,
the Middle East and South America.

“We
feel that Saginaw and Saginaw Township and the Great Lakes Bay Region
have been really advantageous based on the types of great people that we
can attract to our firm here,” Furlo said.

"While our business operations
span throughout the United States and throughout the world, we are
always very eager to do anything we can to play a role in seeing to it
that the Great Lakes Bay Region continues to thrive," he said.

It all began during the lumber era

Furlo said company founders George and Edward Morley settled in Saginaw during the booming Michigan lumber era. They saw an opportunity to provide supplies and dry good to lumber companies.

But as the lumbering industry waned, company leaders looked for opportunities elsewhere.

Near the turn of the 20th century, the company shifted its focus to the automobile industry, Furlo said.

"In the early 1900s, the founders of General Motors and of Ford were actually working with the Morleys to acquire tools and steel for their first factories and in the production of literally the first automobiles that came out of Detroit," he said.

“It was an early example of our company’s ability to embrace change and
really use change to our advantage," he added.

Morley became an industrial supplier to several large companies that now would be considered Fortune 100 companies of the time, Furlo said. In addition to its industrial pursuits, the company had a large, well-known department store in downtown Saginaw called Morley Brothers.

The 100,000-square-foot flagship store stood on North Washington Avenue from 1882 to 1981.

Through the years, Morley has continued to evolve, adding services to meet its clients' needs, Furlo said.

For example, in the early 1960s, Furlo's father, Morley Chairman Louis J. Furlo Sr., saw a need among his largest clients to use merchandise awards to motivate sales organizations and dealer networks. As a result, the company's Incentives Division, now called Morley Performance Improvement, was born.

Louis J. Furlo Sr. later became president and CEO of the company and, in the early 1980s, he acquired the firm, Paul Furlo said. Paul Furlo and his brothers, Chris Furlo and Louis Furlo Jr., now own and manage the firm together.

When asked what the Morley brothers would think of how the company
has grown and changed, Louis J. Furlo Sr., replied, “I think they
would be thrilled.”

— Heather Jordan covers business for MLive/The Saginaw News/The Bay City Times. She can be reached at 989-450-2652 or hjordan@mlive.com. For more Great Lakes Bay Region business news, follow her on Twitter and Facebook.